Where librarians and the internet meet: internet searching, Social Media tools, search engines and their development. These are my personal views.

September 15, 2011

DynaComm filtering is rubbish

Filtering systems - if they're going to work really do need to work properly. A friend of mine recently informed me that my site was banned at her place of work because it was deemed by their filtering software as a personals/dating site. Futuresoft, the producers of the i:filter software in question say of themselves "Managing and controlling corporate internet resources is fast and easy with DynaComm i:filter 8.0. The new graphical interface provides administrators quick access to real-time system information, as well as the ability to easily modify or create web filtering policies with a minimum of effort." I took a look for myself and sure enough:

The incompetence of these people is really worrying. I'll be interested in their response to me. If they can actually be bothered.

Websense (or WebNonsense) is one of the ones that appears to be popular in law firms. It has some awesomely odd categories for blocking/allowing quota timed access to, my favourite being "Tasteless", which is entirely blocked. Glad someone Out There is looking after my delicate disposition...
Another entertaining time was had when I was asked to research the gambling laws of various countries...but WebSense blocks access to gambling sites, even if they're just informational pages. Fun times.

I can't comment on this particular filter, but I know some filters work on IP address ranges that cover a number of sites via the same web host and/or subnet. If a range includes a genuine dating site (or otherwise), it can block the entire IP range. I've suffered that before via a work filter and had it lifted after querying.

If I remember the website you can check within subnets for the actual (if any) offending sites, I'll let you know.

I've just looked at the Futuresoft homepage. Any company that peddles "The Word of Promise" audio bible and the "Truth and Life Dramatized Audio bible" is surely working to a specific agenda. I'd be interested to know Phil if, should they reply re the dynacomm filter, they send you a biblical app as an "added extra". I've read a lot about Americans and their proselytizing but I hadn't appreciated they were so heavily involved in internet filtering. Now that's what I call really tasteless.